Preston King

Preston King (14 October 1806-12 November 1865) was a member of the US House of Representatives (D-NY 18) from 4 March 1843 to 3 March 1847 (succeeding Thomas C. Chittenden and preceding William Collins) and from 4 March 1849 to 3 March 1853 (succeeding Collins and preceding Peter Rowe) and a US Senator (R) from 4 March 1857 to 3 March 1863 (succeeding Hamilton Fish and preceding Edwin D. Morgan).

Biography
Preston King was born in Ogdensburg, New York in 1806, and he worked as a lawyer before serving as Postmaster of Ogdensburg from 1831 to 1834. He went on to serve in the State Assembly from 1835 to 1838, in the US House of Representatives from 1843 to 1847 and from 1849 to 1853, and in the US Senate from 1857 to 1863. He defected to the Free Soil Party before becoming a Republican, and he was a presidential elector on the Abraham Lincoln ticket in 1864. In 1865, President Andrew Johnson appointed him Collector of thte Port of New York in an effort to eliminate corruption in the port and to heal divisions within the Republican Party. King has no success, and he leapt from a ferryboat on 12 November 1865, drowning himself.